Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An old shellfish or turtle with a growth of algae on its back.
- n. An old, large, or sluggish fish.
- n. An extremely conservative or old-fashioned person.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A large and old fish, as a bass: so called by anglers, in allusion to the growth of seaweed, etc., which may be found on its back.
- n. In United States politics, one attached to antiquated notions; an extreme conservative.
- n. In the southern United States, during the civil war, one who hid himself to avoid conscription.
Wiktionary
- n. A turtle that, because of its age, has a growth of algae on its back.
- n. by extension A very conservative or reactionary person, especially one with old-fashioned views.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Political Slang, U.S. A veteran partisan; one who is so conservative in opinion that he may be likened to a stone or old tree covered with moss.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an extremely old-fashioned conservative
Etymologies
- moss + back (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A: because mossback is a traitorous cancervatard who would rather see the country fail than a democrat succed.”
Think Progress » San Francisco Commonwealth Club postpones O’Keefe event.
“The mossback is the man who has either misread the signs of the times, or who has not possessed the speed demanded in the two-minute class.”
“The mossback is the man who tries to use the old methods under the new conditions; he is not "up" with the present times, but "back" with the old times.”
“Indeed the boys so loved this work and were so proud of their skill, that when an unusually vicious old "mossback" was encountered, each strove to be the first catch and master him.”
“District, Province of British Columbia, there lived a "mossback" who was as happy as the 22nd day of June is long in each year.”
Skookum Chuck Fables Bits of History, Through the Microscope
“He was followed to the very verge of the wood, and then the exhausted "mossback" left him to return to the house.”
“mossback," or a "garrulous dotard," and with singular irreverence they took delight in twitting him upon his senility and in pestering him with divers new-fangled notions altogether distasteful, not to say shocking, to a gentleman of his years.”
“Meanwhile, the Bush family's Supreme Court appointees -- along with that mossback relic of the Reagan era, Antonin Scalia -- habitually thumb their noses at the very notion of an independent and impartial judiciary.”
The Huffington Post: Michael Winship: The Bush Legacy Strikes Out American Justice
“Q: why does mossback insist on giving “aid and comfort” to “the enemy” by not wanting them to be tried for their crimes?”
Think Progress » San Francisco Commonwealth Club postpones O’Keefe event.
“Call me a mossback but I still believe in supply and demand.”
The Fear Factor, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mossback’.
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Insulting nicknames for politicians
Some of these terms are old-fashioned, but they might still come in handy.
snollygoster, slang-whanger, bloviator, fence-sitter, flip-flopper, log roller, mossback, lame duck, mugwump, spinmeister, ward heeler, loose cannon
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This week's words
hand-handled, crouch, hootchy-kootchy, gloriole, glory hole, metempsychosis, doctrinaire, transmigration, celestial, treetop, luxuriant, physic and 102 more...
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Front and Back
backchat, backbone, backpack, backhoe, backfire, backhanded, breakfront, beachfront, drawback, effrontery, frontier, switchback and 196 more...
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Pejoratives
The words people use to disparage, belittle, and derogate one another. (May start out--&/or end up) with a progressive political bent, as I am "bent" that way.)
nihilist, stalinist, marxist, radical, liberal, incoherent, polecat, denialist, conservativist, mossback, mountebank, mandarins and 2 more...
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Politically Insulting
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mossback.
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